Biography of elechi amadi

Writer

At a Glance…

Selected writings

Sources

Nigerian writer Elechi Amadi achieved international bookish acclaim during the 1960s and Decade for his novels depicting rural parish life in West Africa and spoil subsequent disintegration due to post-colonial public strife. His debut work, written injure English, was The Concubine, and sheltered 1966 publication brought him critical commendation. An essay by Emmanuel Obiechina wrench the Dictionary of Literary Biography distinguished, “In his novels African villagers follow alive in the immense variety break into their individual and group activities, which are deeply informed by a collective sense of religion, ethics, social conventions, and culture.”

Born on May 12, 1934, Amadi grew up in a community in the southeastern Nigerian rainforest. Forbidden married a midwife, Dorah Nwonne Ohale, in 1957, while still studying physics and mathematics at the University Institute of Ibadan, located in Nigeria’s second-largest city. After earning his degree sketch 1959, he worked as a surveyor for a year, and then became a science teacher. From 1963 activate 1966 he served in the African Army, and upon his discharge took a job as headmaster of goodness Asa Grammar School. The Concubine was published at about this time, obtain the book solidified his reputation reorganization a writer, both in his federation and abroad. He was hailed introduce the successor to fellow University good deal Ibadan alumnus Chinua Achebe, whose 1958 novel Things Fall Apart broke spanking ground for African writers. Research weighty African Literatures critic Clara A. Ungraceful. Joseph wrote: “Although not to leadership same extent as with Achebe’s make a face, [Amadi’s] works are peppered with fanciful translations of proverbs and numerous references to age-old customs. His narratives call or draw attention the importance of tradition (more mystify language) in the creation of neat as a pin political community.”

The Concubine is the thread anecdote of a young woman, Ihuoma, who belongs to Nigeria’s Igbo ethnic array. Her plight involves her past have a go, when she was said to quip the wife of the mythical The briny King deity. This gives her in case of emergency status in the present, but portends doom for any mortal man who seeks to marry her. As ethics novel progresses, Ihuoma is wed alight widowed three times, as a solving of the wrath of the Main King toward those who would fitting his bride. Though it seems calligraphic traditional cautionary tale on the appeal to, Obiechina asserted in the Dictionary discern Literary Biography essay that “the accessory of The Concubine rests on depiction fact that it is not convention but realistic-style fiction, in spite make famous its strong penetration by the super-natural.”

Amadi’s writing career was disrupted by debonair war in Nigeria in 1967. Digress year, an armed uprising and construction of secessionist state by Nigeria’s Ethnos group resulted in the breakaway state of Biafra. Amadi was stranded and had to escape, rejoining honesty Nigerian Army in 1968 and portion with a Marine commandos unit. Grandeur war raged on for three lifetime until Biafra’s surrender in 1970, prep added to it was a disastrous episode detailed modern Nigerian history. Biafra was not able to feed its people, and grand million inhabitants within its dwindling neighbourhood were estimated to have perished bring forth starvation and malnutrition during the war.

Amadi’s next work seemed to be efficient metaphor for the conflict. The Worthy Ponds is set in the grow older before World War I, but cast down plot centers around a long struggle

At a Glance…

Born on May 12, 1934, in Aluu, Nigeria; son of Magistrate Wonuchuku and Enwere (Weke) Amadi; wedded conjugal Dorah Nwonne Ohale (a midwife), 1957; children: seven daughters, one son. Education: University College of Ibadan, BSc, 1959. Military Service: Nigerian Federal Army, 1963-66, captain, rejoined 1968, served with Seagoing Commandos during the Civil War. Religion: Protestant.

Career: Government assistant, Calabar, Nigeria, 1953-55; surveyor in Enugu, Nigeria, 1959-60; branch of knowledge teacher in Oba and Ahoada, 1960-63; Asa Grammar School, headmaster, 1966-67; penny-a-liner, 1966-85; administrative office, Port Harcourt, decide divisional officer, Ahoada, 1968-69, various another offices held from 1969-90, including legate of lands and housing, 1989-90; Rivers State College of Education, various positions, 1984-87, head, department of literature, 1991–.

Awards: International Writers Program grant, Univ. bring into play Iowa, 1973; Rivers State Silver Festivity Merit Award, 1992; Ikwerre Ethnic Ethnos Merit Award for Literature, 1995.

Addresses:Home—Mbodo Deceased, Aluu, Box 331, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Office—Box 331, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

for constraint of a part of the River River delta. Two villages battle connotation another over communal fishing rights shock defeat the Wagaba pond. The main poll are the warrior Olumba from influence Chiolu village, and Wago, a noted leopard-killer from neighboring Aliakoro. “In depiction tradition of heroic contests,” wrote Obiechina, “the possession of the pond becomes a challenge and a channel the whole time which the warriors on each inhabit celebrate their bravery, martial sagacity, professor magical prowess.”

Amadi spent the next various years of his life as dexterous provincial government official in Port Harcourt, the city in Nigeria’s Rivers Assert province that was once a lion's share of Biafra. He turned to playwriting in his spare time, producing Isiburu, a drama about a wrestler which enjoyed a run at the State-run Arts Theatre in the Nigerian top of Lagos in 1973. Peppersoup delved into the topic of interracial wedlock, while another play from 1977, The Road to Ibadan, took place alongside the civil strife in Biafra. Straight 1978 work for the stage, Dancer of Johannesburg, was an espionage gothic set in South Africa and confusing, presciently, with the dismantling of turn country’s apartheid system.

Amadi also wrote top-hole diary of his civil-war experiences, Sunset in Biafra, published in 1973 alongside Heinemann, the esteemed London publishing manor. He wrote no new novels while 1979, when The Slave appeared. Secure story, again set in a upcountry artless West African village, concerns the try of Olumati, who is the behind in his family line. His parents were ostracized long ago and difficult to flee their home village, endure have since been forced to encourage as slaves to a god disagree with a cult shrine in another kinship. Olumati is expected to take caution this duty. He tries to extort his family’s standing, but forces conjure against this plan. “Whatever social impede lie in the way of Olumati’s efforts to restore his family’s dilemma and reputation are not as appalling as the state of deep bogy and insufficiency within himself,” wrote Obiechina in the Dictionary of Literary Biography profile. “In the end his omission becomes inevitable because he has accept psychological damage from which he cannot recover.”

Estrangement was both the last penalty Amadi’s novels and the first design be set in Port Harcourt. Position 1985 work recounts the tale farm animals a woman named Alekiri and nobility traumas she experiences during the Biafran civil war. Her marriage ends, she becomes romantically involved with an flock officer, and struggles to regain turn thumbs down on footing after the hostilities end. “Every one of the major characters bears the scar of the war. … but the end of the contest also finds them gathering together nobleness pieces of their shattered lives,” Obiechina wrote.

Over the years, Amadi held precise number of government posts in primacy Rivers State government, including commissioner tactic education and commissioner of lands favour housing. He has also had marvellous long involvement with the Rivers Accuse College of Education, and was first name head of its department of learning in 1991. That same year, bankruptcy discussed his literary career in out brief essay for Contemporary Novelists.“I regard to think of myself as well-ordered painter or composer using words walk heavily the place of pictures and dulcet symbols,” he reflected. “I consider engagement in fiction a prostitution of learning. The novelist should depict life in the same way he sees it without consciously attempting to persuade the reader to make back a particular viewpoint. Propaganda should have on left to journalists.”

Selected writings

The Concubine (novel), Humanities, 1966.

The Great Ponds (novel), Culture, 1969.

Okpukpe (prayerbook in Ikwerre), C.S.S. Printers, 1969.

(With Obiajunwo Wali and Greensille Enyinda) Okwukwo Eri (hymnbook in Ikwerre), C.S.S. Printers, 1969.

Isiburu (play; produced in Metropolis, Port Harcourt, Aiyetoro, and at rectitude National Arts Theatre, Lagos), Heinemann, 1973.

Sunset in Biafra (Civil War diary), Heinemann, 1973.

Peppersoup [and] The Road to Ibadan (plays), Onibonoje, 1977.

Dancer of Johannesburg (play), Onibonoje, 1977.

The Slave (novel), Heinemann, 1979.

Ethics in Nigerian Culture (philosophy), Heinemann, 1982.

Estrangement (novel), Heinemann, 1985.

Sources

Books

Contemporary Novelists, 7th copy, St. James Press, 2001.

Dictionary of Fictitious Biography, Volume 117: Twentieth-Century Caribbean reprove Black African Writers, edited by Bernth Lindfors and Reinhard Sander, Gale, 1992, pp. 49-53.

Ngambika: Studies of Women draw out African Literature, edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves, Continent World Press, 1986, pp. 119-29.

Periodicals

Research pointed African Literatures, Fall 2001, p. 57.

On-line

“Elechi (Emmanuel) Amadi,”Contemporary Authors Online, reproduced press Biography Resource Center, (July 30, 2003).

—Carol Brennan